Right after the Civil War, books were published that attempted to refute the "immorality" of slavery. While some of these books purported to document the kind and reasonable treatment of slaves in the South, others, such as this book, portrayed blacks as deserving of their ill-treatment. All of these books relied on racial stereotypes. Racial stereotypes persisted in the United States long after the Civil War and these children's books were also especially popular in England. At about this same time, silent movies were showing white actors in blackface and featuring minstrel shows.Edward Windsor Kemble was a self-taught artist well-known for his cartoons of soldiers, Indians, and blacks in publications such as Harper's, Century, and Leslie's.